The decision to expeditiously prepare this roadmap toward Turkey’s meeting all the requirements for EU membership through structural reforms was made last January after a high-level government strategy meeting. The roadmap, titled “Turkey’s Program for Harmonization with EU Legislation,” is a highly detailed 412-page plan of action, consisting of 33 chapters with a timetable for all the steps to be taken over the next seven years. It is a highly ambitious attempt that has received thus far only lukewarm praise from the EU to push Turkey towards meeting all the EU membership criteria, without waiting for the EU to commit itself to recognizing Turkey’s membership once those criteria are met. The membership criteria are -- besides the requirements of a stable political democracy and a functioning market economy (known as the Copenhagen criteria) -- based on the acquis communautaire, the EU’s total cumulative body of law, which consists of five major types of legislation, contained in close to 90,000 pages. It is worth noting that the acquis tekes precedence over each EU member’s national legislation, which means that membership entails significant loss of national sovereignty. It should also be emphasized that from the view point of the EU harmonization with the acquis is not an end in itself; it is the means through which a country prepares itself for all obligations of membership, including the aims of economic, monetary and political union.
What is the significance of the roadmap’s target year of 2013? The EU has refused even to consider setting a deadline for the conclusion of the accession talks with Turkey, although unofficially 2014 has often been mentioned. The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government has now unilaterally set a deadline of 2013 for meeting membership requirements, whether membership is guaranteed or not once those requirements are met. Turkey, which already has a functioning market economy, has thus notified the EU and the rest of the world that it considers meeting all other EU membership criteria, including political reforms, as essential to its national development and transformation, regardless of the outcome of the accession talks. Turkey expects to finish most of the harmonization with the acquis by 2011, at which time it will consider asking the EU to set a definite date for accession.
After the start of the accession talks in October 2005, the EU last December froze negotiation on eight chapters of the acquis because of Turkey’s refusal to open its ports to traffic and trade from EU member Cyprus, which represents the Greek population of the island only. Turkey’s refusal is justified by the EU’s failure to meet its commitment to lift its trade embargo on the Turkish part of Cyprus. The AK Party government believes that in an end run around the EU, it could negotiate, open and close these chapters by itself, while engaging the EU informally in the process. Of the other 25 chapters, Turkey has concluded negotiations in only one area, the chapter on science and research. Therefore, it has a long way to go in its quest toward harmonization with the acquis.
There is no political consensus in Parliament on Turkey’s EU roadmap put forward by the AK Party government. The main opposition party Republican People’s Party (CHP) has questioned the AK Party’s “extreme optimism” and their unilateral reformist strategy aimed at defusing the highly uncertain prospects for Turkey’s EU membership. Its’ position is that the EU should first commit itself to Turkey’s membership if Turkey were to fulfill all the accession criteria, and that without such a commitment Turkey should review its entire relationship with the EU, including the customs union. It is doubtful that the other opposition parties have the same degree of commitment to this roadmap as the AK Party government. Unless the AK Party maintains its sizeable majority in Parliament after the next general election this year, enacting and implementing the specific legislation detailed in the roadmap could prove to be very difficult, if not impossible.
Apart from the feasibility of its implementation due to the lack of political consensus at the national level, the roadmap lacks a chapter by chapter and reform by reform cost/benefit analysis of Turkey’s harmonization with the acquis. Although the AK Party argues that the overall benefit from following the roadmap will justify the collective efforts, it is legitimate to ask: (1) What the specific costs of the individual structural reforms might be; (2) Who would be the likely major winners and losers within Turkey from those reforms; (3) How the major losers could be appeased, to acquire their cooperation; and (4) whether the specific reforms chosen are the most cost-effective choices.
Nevertheless, with this roadmap, the attitude which the AK Party government has taken has received the strong endorsement of the Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (TÜSİAD), as a pro-active and courageous approach to completing Turkey’s transformation into a democratic developed country, which is in Turkey’s own national interest, regardless of whether it opens the gates to EU membership or not.
